Revanchism (from French: revanche, "revenge") is the political manifestation of the will to reverse territorial losses incurred by a country, often following a war or social movement. As a term, revanchism originated in 1870s France in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War among nationalists who wanted to avenge the French defeat and reclaim the lost territories of Alsace-Lorraine.

Revanchism draws its strength from patriotic and retributionist thought and is often motivated by economic or geo-political factors. Extreme revanchist ideologues often represent a hawkish stance, suggesting that their desired objectives can be achieved through the positive outcome of another war. It is linked with irredentism, the conception that a part of the cultural and ethnic nation remains "unredeemed" outside the borders of its appropriate nation-state. Revanchist politics often rely on the identification of a nation with a nation-state, often mobilizing deep-rooted sentiments of ethnic nationalism, claiming territories outside the state where members of the ethnic group live, while using heavy-handed nationalism to mobilize support for these aims. Revanchist justifications are often presented as based on ancient or even autochthonous occupation of a territory since "time immemorial", an assertion that is usually inextricably involved in revanchism and irredentism, justifying them in the eyes of their proponents.

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The instance of revanchism that gave these groundswells of opinion their modern name came in the 1870s. French Revanchism was a deep sense of bitterness, hatred and demand for revenge against Germany, especially because of the loss of Alsace and Lorraine following defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. [1][2] Paintings that emphasized the humiliation of the defeat came in high demand, such as those by Alphonse de Neuville. [3]

A French propaganda poster from 1917 portrays Prussia as an octopus stretching out its tentacles vying for control. It is captioned with an 18th-century quote: "Even in 1788, Mirabeau was saying that War is the National Industry of Prussia."

French revanchism influenced the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 following the end of World War I, which restored Alsace-Lorraine to France and extracted reparations from the defeated Germany. The conference was not only opened on the anniversary of the proclamation of the Second Reich, the treaty also had to be signed by the new German government in the same room, the Hall of Mirrors.

Ethnographic Lithuania was an early 20th-century concept that defined Lithuanian territories as a significant part of the territories that belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Lithuanians as all people living on them, regardless of whether those people spoke Lithuanian language and considered themselves Lithuanian. The concept was in contrast to those of "historic Lithuania"—the territories of the Duchy—and the "linguistic Lithuania", the area where Lithuanian language was overwhelmingly spoken.

The concept of ethnographic Lithuania clashed with the right for self-determination of people living in that large territory, particularly Poles and Belarusians, who according to the supporters of the ethnographic Lithuania, were "slavicized Lithuanians" who needed to be re-Lithuanized. They argued that an individual cannot decide on his ethnicity and nationality, that it is not related to the language but to their ancestry.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Poland was trying to reclaim ethnic Polish lands that had been occupied by German, Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires. According to Richard Overy in The Road to War: The Origins of World War II:

Poland counted herself among the revisionist powers, with dreams of a southward advance, even a Polish presence on the Black Sea. The victim of the revisionist claims of others, she did not see the Versailles frontiers as fixed either. In 1938 when the Czech state was dismembered at the Munich conference, Poland issued an ultimatum of her own to Prague, demanding the cession of the Teschen region; the Czech government was powerless to resist.

Sweden lost Finland to Russia in 1809 in the Finnish War, ending nearly 600 years of Finland belonging to the Swedish realm. For most of the remaining years of the 1800s there was talk (though few practical plans or political will) to reclaim Finland from Russia. Sweden was never able to challenge Russia's military might on its own so no attempts were made. During the Crimean War of 1853–56, the Allied nations initiated talks with Sweden to allow troop and fleet movements through Swedish ports to be used against Russia. In return the Allies would help Sweden reclaim Finland with the help of an expeditionary force. In the end the plans fell through and Sweden never became involved in the fighting.

The annexation of the Crimean peninsula by the Russian Federation in April 2014, together with accusations by Western and Ukrainian leaders that Russia is supporting separatist actions by ethnic Russians in the secessionist Donbass region, has been cited by a number of prominent media outlets in the West as evidence of a revanchist policy on the part of the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin.[6][7]

^Karine Varley, "The Taboos of Defeat: Unmentionable Memories of the Franco-Prussian War in France, 1870–1914." in Jenny Macleod, ed., Defeat and Memory: Cultural Histories of Military Defeat in the Modern Era (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) pp. 62-80.

^Karine Varley, Under the Shadow of Defeat: The War of 1870-71 in French Memory (2008)